Tribune, Assemble!

Despite the grumbling on Facebook about it, the Portland Tribune‘s Steve Law put together a relatively even-handed piece yesterday on the letter from the city that led to the closing of Encore Club last month. The article interviews several people on the Portland poker scene, including lawyer Mark Humphrey and Ricky Lee, general manager at Aces Full. It goes into a small amount of detail about the state Bureau of Labor and Insustries complaints that led to increased scrutiny of the the Portland poker clubs. It’s worth your time to take a look; whether you continue to play poker in Portland is dependent on the outcome of these events.

My own take is, this was a train wreck waiting to happen, and it was dumb luck that things  got as big as they did before  the crash happened. Labor law came into being because of some pretty egregious past practices, and whether you agree with them or not, they exist, so when someone feels they’re aggrieved by their quasi-employer—whether they have a case or not—the camel of government will stick its nose in the tent to see what’s up. And if they find something that looks like an unregulated, unreported, untaxed exchange of cash, it’s going to perk that nose up.

At the end, Encore’s weekly schedule had guarantees that were equal to nearly a third of the total in weekly guarantees at the Venetian in Las Vegas. It’s not something that can go unnoticed forever; all it can take is one disgruntled employee or customer to initiate the dismantling of the whole thing.

Here’s to hoping that doesn’t happen. Just when I was starting to get better at poker….

Bovada Nada

Anyone who’s followed the blog for any length of time knows I’ve played on Bovada and taken advantage of its unique all-cards-exposed anonymous play to mine the depths of hand histories. As you may have heard, they’re shutting down poker operations and transferring the platform over to the heretofore-unheard-of Ignition Casino.

Now, despite lots of heartache about their Mac client not working well until relatively recently, and complaints from other players, I can say that when I’ve cashed checks out from Bovada, they’ve gone through the deposit process with nary a hitch.I never had anything significant on the site (I don’t have anything significant) but I wasn’t about to move it over to Ignition.

I min-cashed a small NLHE Turbo Bounty tournament the night before the announcement, with a little bit I had on there after the summer, then played my money out  in a couple of tournaments. Maybe I’ll look at America’s Cardroom, they’ve got a series going this month….

The State of Portland Poker

I skipped my usual shot at the big time on Friday night and went for the funk: Big O at Portland Players Club (now in A&L Sports Bar across the intersection of NE 60th & Glisan from the old location). I hadn’t been in for exactly three months, what with seven weeks in Vegas and their reduced schedule, so I was eager to say hello.

A $30 buyin doesn’t sound like much, but Big O with unlimited rebuys can be a volatile game. I got there late and spent some time catching up after the summer with Chadd Baker, then jumped into the game in the last level before break.

I ended up on the table where one of the players was catching lots of cards, where almost everyone else had rebought at least once. I ended up rebuying in an early hand where I had to call with a good draw only to see it turn to much, then picked up a few chips before the break and added on.

The average number of rebuys neared two per player ($100, with the door) plus the $20 addon. With only  15 players and three payouts, the mony up top wasn’t huge, but if you took 3rd place, you were making the same money as 9th in a $10K across town, and only having to go through 12 people instead of 100. Plus you get all those extra cards!

I lost a big hand, folded a winner, then started chipping up before running kings and a flush draw into aces where I didn’t improve. Slowly checking places off my visitation list.

Deal of the Week: Muckleshoot Poker Summer Classic

The week after the Chinook Winds Fall Poker Classic (last week’s Deal), the Muckleshoot Casino starts up its end-of-summer event. I don’t know if it’s chance or just excessive whining, but the two events aren’t scheduled against each other this year, so if you can’t make one or, just maybe, you’d like to play the only two major tournament series within 200 miles of Portland (sorry, Wildhorse), you’re not forced to choose.

Muckleshoot may be the largest casino poker room in Oregon and Washington, with 32 tables, though many of them remain cash tables during tournaments. Their events aren’t large in numbers and there are no guarantees, but the size of the buyins and money added to the pot make for some decent-sized prize pools.

There are five events on the calendar this year all start at noon:

1. $250 NLHE Shootout, 14 September, Wednesday
2. $200 NLHE, 15 September, Thursday
3. $300 NLHE, 16 September, Friday
4. $500 NLHE, 17 September, Saturday
5. $750 NLHE, 18 September, Sunday

Structure sheets are available (almost laughably, they’re photos of printed structure sheets).

This month’s poker calendar from Muckleshoot shows the events and the buyins, mentioning $55K in added money, but neither the calendar or structure sheets mention how it’s distributed. According to Hendon Mob, last fall it was $4K, $4K, $5K, $10K, and $20K, but that doesn’t quite add up to the $55K. I’m guessing $5K for the first two events.

Competition in the Seattle area is tough, as you might ecpect. Rep Porter won the Main last fall, and Portland’s Jake Dahl came in 4th. The smaller buyin NLHE events brought in about 280 entries, with the Main getting 230, and 160 for the Shootout. Porter took home $48K for his win.

One of the interesting things about the Muckleshoot series is their satellites. Starting tonight and running every other Wednesday through 7 September, there’s a $125 mega satellite at 7pm that gets you your choice of one of two packages:

• Entry into the $500 Saturday event and two of the other weekday events, or
• Entry into the $750 Sunday event and one of the weekday events.

There are $225 mega satellites Sunday 11 September and at 7pm the following two days that award seats into all of the events.

This Week in Portland Poker

The good news is, even though I’m short on time this week, I’m able to keep up. The bad news is, there isn’t much to keep up on. So far as I’m aware, there isn’t anything off the regular schedules happening this week. Keep an eye out here and on the NW Poker group on Facebook.

And, stealing from Chevy Chase on the first season of Saturday Night Live: Portland poker is still not dead.

Only a Day Away

• See the  Deal above for for the Muckleshoot Summer Classic satellites.
• Today is Day F flights for Mega Millions XV at the Bicycle Casino/WPT Legends of Poker. There are flights through Monday, with Day 2 of the event on Tuesday. Mega Millions has a $1M guarantee, entry for most flights is $160 with a $100 addon. It is a best-stack forward tournament, with money paid for abandoned stacks. Tuesday has a satellite to the $550 HORSE tournament (with 10% of the field receiving a seat and $550 cash for their $150 buyin) and a $565 Survivor tournament that pays $5K to 10% of the field. Legends of Poker continues through the end of the month.
• The Summer Super Stack in Calgary continues through Monday, with a C$200K guarantee Main Event with flights Friday through Sunday. C$1.5K buyin.
• In Santa Ynez, California at the Chumash Summer Poker Series outside Santa Barbara, there’s a $100K guarantee with a $350 buyin on Saturday to wrap things up.
•  Albany’s Black Diamond Hot August Classic starts tomorrow, with a $100 buyin freezeout. Friday is a Bounty tournament, and Saturday has two games with a morning $150 buyin Tag Team event and $150 Big O in the evening. Sunday’s event is a $250 buyin with one rebuy.
• The Atlantis Resort in Reno is host to the WPT Deepstacks tour for twelve days beginning tomorrow. It opens with a $5K guarantee Bounty tournament, then the first major event is a $400 buyin $50K guarantee on Friday. The series ends with a 3-day $250K $1,100 buyin Main Event next weekend. The Main Event had 330 entries and a $317K prize pool last year.
• Sundays at noon through 4 September, Chinook Winds is hosting 1-seat guaranteed satellite tournaments for their Fall Coast Poker Classic Main Event ($550 buyyin, $200 addon) on 10 September. The satellites are $40 to enter (including fee and dealer appreciation), with $20 rebuys and a $20 addon.
• San Jose’s Bay 101 Casino has the Bay 101 Open starting Monday. The Main Event next weekend is also a $1,100 buyin, but it’s likely to be more heavily stacked with pros from Northern California than the Reno event. There were 432 entries last year, making a $432K prize pool (less juice than the WPTDeepstack event, apparently)
• A week from Thursday is HPT Indiana. That sounds like it’s a long way, but the venue is the Ameristar Casino Hotel, East Chicago, which is technically Indiana, but it’s just fifty miles from O’Hare airport (ORD), and since O’Hare is a major hum, you can often get round-trip flights from PDX for less than $200. Direct flight time is four hours. The opening weekend has a $100K guarantee Monster Stack ($300 buyin), The Main Event over Labor Day weekend has no guarantee ($1,650 buyin) but last September’s stop in Chicago had 432 entries with a $619K prize pool.
• Closer to home is the WSOP Circuit event at Planet Hollywood in Las Vegas, also kicking off a week from Thursday. The first event ($365 buyin) has six entry flights from Thursday through Saturday and a $150K guarantee. The series wraps up on labor Day weekend, with the $1,675 buyin Main Event ($750K guarantee), a $250 Seniors Event on the Sunday of Labor Day weekend, a $580 Circuit ring tournament on Sunday, and that evening, the $5,300 High Roller tournament. Last year, the PH fall Circuit event was in November, and the Main Event had a $1.5M guarantee that went to nearly $2M with 1,304 entries. The spring event this year at Bally’s beat the $1M guarantee by $800K; there’s no telling why the WSOP is hedging their bets this fall, unless they expect people to be occupied for Labor Day.
• The Last Sunday of the Month, Tulalip Resort Casino is holding a $5K added tournament with a $230 buyin.

Remember to keep an eye on the #PNWPokerCal Twitter hashtag and the PNW Poker Calendar for upcoming events!

The State of Portland Poker 

Last Friday night was the first big tournament to run since the sudden closure of Encore/PDX Poker Club in the middle of July, and despite my own personal disappointment at not doing better, the First Friday $20K guarantee at Final Table appears to have been eagerly anticipated by local players itching to cash big.

Final Table $20K line to enter at starting time.

I’ve played three dozen $20K events at Final Table over the past four years. Over the past year, at least two of them had overlays on the guarantees, for whatever reasons. Final Table discontinued their Fifth Friday events a while back, possibly due to an even more anaemic showing at those. So maybe they weren’t quite expecting what Encore’s closure—and possibly their change to the buyin structure—would do.

Previously, the $20Ks had buyins of $100, with a rebuy of $100 if felted, and a $50 addon. Now, I personally prefer that, but there has been a push in general toward live rebuys. Friday night was the first Final Table $20K with a $60 buyin, 2 live rebuys, and a $40 addon.

None of the other $20K events I attended had topped 190 players (other events like the $100Ks at Final Table have had far more). Friday night there were 235 entries, and a total prize pool almost double the guarantee: $36,160. Whatever my preferences might be, I think the days of felted rebuys in the $20K are over.

The atmosphere was a bit chaotic. I don’t think anyone was quite expecting the turnout they got, and it seemed like there was a line of people waiting to buy in almost through the entire four levels of play before the break, and an alternate list that was seating people after break. The tables went 10-handed, which is not usually the case at Final Table (one of the advantages they had over Encore).

On 20 events I have prize pool data for (sometimes I don’t make it that long), average expenditure for each player previously was $165, or a buyin, an addon, and 15% of another buyin. On Friday, even though the prize pool was nearly $3,000 more than any of the other $20Ks I had data for, the average expenditure was only $149 but represented the value of a buyin and addon and five-sixths of another buyin.

Me? I lost what was left of my first buyin with [as ks] v [kx kx], did a double rebuy, then lost everything with trip kings from the big blind against a flopped set that turned into a full house. Which is why we have to rely on Jason Brown for the picture below, because I wasn’t there long enough for the addons to make it to the board. (Obviously, there were more than three places paid.)

Image via Jason Brown

I wasn’t able to make it to Portland Meadows for their Saturday $10K—a regular weekly feature at noon—but Brian Sarchi provided this image of the tournament board when I reached out to him for information. That’s $95/entry, by comparison.

All in all, not a bad turnout at either location, with prize pools of 80% and 70% over the respective guarantees for what are now the largest regularly-scheduled events on the Portland tournament poker calendar.

Much as I hate to play with live rebuys, Final Table’s move to the live rebuy system makes it more likely that they’re not going to be facing overlays in the big events, at least. I don’t think the same can be said for the morning tournaments, which have missed the guarantee all three times I played them in the past two weeks. Something’s going to have to change there, but for the big events, it looks like there’s still some healthy awards to be won.

I played Tuesday night’s $1.5K guarantee, getting knocked out [ax qx] v. [ac qc] on a [4x 4c qx] flop when the board ran out runner-runner clubs, but they went well over the guarantee. There were a couple of tables of 1/2 NLHE and a Big O game running. Lasted exactly one hand in the Big O game, when I got it all in on a [tx 6x 4x] flop with top two and an over pair (queens) against a straight with low draw and top set. [4x] on the turn and [5x] on the river improved everyone’s hand except mine.

Deal of the Week: Chinook Winds Fall Poker Classic

Full info on this fall’s series at Chinook Winds is out, with both the schedule and structure sheets now available online. It’s just under four weeks out, with the $110 buyin, $15K guarantee Senior (55+) event opening things up on Tuesday, 6 September, and the $330 buyin, $30K Big O game on Wednesday. There’s a $20K NLHE 6-Max on Friday, with the $550 buyin, $200 addon, $100K guarantee Main Event running on Saturday (Day 2 on Sunday).

Last fall’s Main Event drew in 190 entries with the same guarantee and buyin structure, making a prize pool of $120K. It appears that unlike previous years, tickets for the events are no longer offered through Chinook Winds’ online ticketing system, so you will need to be onsite to buy in (you can, however, get tickets to The Monkees a couple weeks later online!)

For anyone unfamiliar with Lincoln City, it’s about 90 miles southwest of Portland, on the Oregon coast more or less due west of Salem. There are a couple of routes to take from the metro area (about 2 hours if you stay under the speed limits), the more direct of which is down Highway 99W through Dundee and Dayton, but that can be torturous due to high traffic, particularly if you’re coming from the east side of Portland or from the north. My personal preference is to take Interstate 5 south all the way to Salem, then cut across on Highway 22 until it intersects Highway 18. It’s 15 miles longer, but can take less time. Coming south on US101, it’s about two-and-a-half hours from Astoria. If you don’t want to make the drive, there are some public transportation options, but the first thing to check would be the Chinook Winds shuttles that operate from Portland, Vancouver, and other cities in the metro area. Call the number on the schedule to make sure they’re running (you will need a Winners Circle cards from the casino).

If you’re planning to stay overnight, it’s time to book your room. The resort itself had reasonably-priced rooms when I last checked, which hasn’t been the case in the past (no view, and smoking, but reasonable). That probably won’t be the case for long. I’ve also had good luck with last-minute reservations at the Motel 6, which is about three-quarters of a mile from the casino (and you pass Pig ‘N’ Pancake on the way!)

If you’re at the beach on a Sunday before it all starts, there are satellites to the Main Event at noon for $20.

This Week in Portland Poker

At press time, I’m not aware of any special events scheduled for this week, so let’s do a little inventory.

• Portland Players Club is located at A&L Sports Bar on NE 60th & Glison, just off I84. They run mixed game dealer’s choice Omaha shootouts Wednesday and Friday afternoons, with Big O tournaments Wednesday and Friday evenings and Sunday at noon.
• Claudia’s has shootouts in the afternoons every day, with evening tournaments seven days a week.
• Aces Full has a noon tournament every day except Sunday, with shootouts in the later afternoon.
• Rialto Poolroom has nightly shootouts, and hosts the Monday Mix.
• Portland Meadows runs tournaments at noon seven days a week, with shoootouts starting in the afternoon and a 7pm tournament. The noon Saturday tournament is a $10K guarantee, with a $5K on Sunday.
• The Game specializes in shootouts, starting at 11am, and has a Sunday afternoon $800 freeroll tournament.
• Final Table has a tournament at 11am weekdays, and another at 7pm, with a different schedule on weekends. Their regular schedule now includes a $10K on Friday night, with the $20K on the First Friday. They also have an active shootout section opening at 11am.

Only a Day Away

• This weekend at the WPT Legends of Poker at the Bicycle Casino in Los Angeles is the start of Mega Millions XV. There are starting flights from Friday, 12 August, with two or three flights each day through 22 August. Most flights are $160 with a $100 addon. 10% of the players make the money, and 5% advance to Day 2. On weekends, there is a third flight for $550 where 10% of players advance. Players advancing to Day 2 make $1,000, and you can enter as many flights as you like. If you get more than one stack through to Day 2, you choose which stack to play and get $2,500 cash and an entry into a $1.1K event for each abandoned stack. You can also buy in directly to Day 2 for $4.3K. There are two mega-satellites that feed directly into Day 2. Last year’s Legends of Poker Mega Millions had a prize pool of $1.7M, with more than a quarter-million up top. Round-trip flights to LA that span the last few days of Mega Millions are still only about $200.
• Today is the start of the Venetian August Weekend Extravaganza, which runs through the weekend with three starting days for a $250 buyin $80K guarantee. I wasn’t able to find flights to Las Vegas at the last minute for less than $300 though.
• The Deerfoot Inn in Calgary is the setting for the Summer Super Stack, which features a C$200K guarantee Main Event (C$1.5K buyin) with entry days 19—21 August. At current exchange rates, the buyin is $1,140. A round-trip direct flight from PDX to Calgary (YCC) for the last two days of the Main is $425, and the flight’s less than two hours.
• Friday, Saturday, and Sunday are entry days for the Arizona State Poker Championship at Talking Stick Resort outside Phoenix. Buyin is $1.1K, you can still find round-trip flight to Phoenix at the last minute for about $400.
• Last-minute addition at River Rock Casino in Vancouver, BC.

https://twitter.com/riverrockpoker/status/763136020246212608

• Monday is the start of the Summer Poker Series at Chumash Casino Resort. Their $100K guarantee ($325 buyin) is Saturday the 20th. Chumash is 125 northwest of Los Angeles.
• The Black Diamond Hot August Poker Classic starts a week from Thursday in Albany. See last week’s Deal.
• That same day is the start of the WPTDeepstacks Reno at Atlantis Casino Resort Spa. There are a total of 16 events, with a $250K guarantee Main Event from 26—29 August ($1.1K buyin). Roundtrip flights at the end of the series are running about $300.
• The Bay 101 Open runs 22—29 August in San Jose. Seven events, most in the $350—$550 buyin range, with the Main Event at $1.1K. The winner of the Main gets a seat into next spring’s WPT Bay 101 Shooting Star as well as the prize money. Special events include Omaha Hi-Lo and a NLHE Partners tournament. Most events are no re-entry, though you can enter each o fht eMain Event flights one time each. Tournaments start at 9am, making it tough to get a morning flight before play begins, but you can still get a flight Saturday morning at 6am that puts you in San Jose before 8am for $160 round-trip.
• If you’re looking for a late-summer trip and you’re nautically-inclined, CardPlayer Cruises is offering a 7-Night Pacific Coastal Cruise, leaving Seattle on 16 September (it’s a little bit out, but I presume you need to reserve your room earlier). The cruise stops in Astoria, San Francisco, and Victoria before returning to Seattle, and the schedule in the poker room (open only to passengers booked thtough CardPlayer Cruises) includes a $340 CardPlayer Poker Tour event and cash games. You have to call for pricing on the cruise, and CardPlayer Cruises doesn’t report their results to Hendon Mob, so there’s no way to tell how many participants there might be or how much action the cash games have, but if you want to take a gamble….

Poker Portland

I didn’t get a chance to make it out much over the weekend, but I did play Final Table’s $8K guarantee on Friday night. 94 entries and live rebuys ($40 buyin/rebuy/addon) easily made the guarantee, for a prize pool of $11,680. Unfortunately, none of it was mine, as I had a great spot to 3-bet with [qx qx] in late position and got called by [ax jx]. Then he flopped [ax jx jx] and I was drawing very sliim. I did chop the 11am $1.5K guarantee on Monday, which had a small overlay with only 22 entries. The other big games in town over the weekend were at Portland Meadows. Tuesday I dropped in at Aces Full. They’re running a noon game every day except Sunday, with shootouts on Fridays and Saturdays in the afternoon, according to Ricky. Their website got back online while I was there, they’re running a $1K guarantee at noon on Friday and Saturday. The Tuesday game was just 10 players with a $480 prize pool. I squeaked into 3rd place.

Too Old for the Main?

This year’s Main Event final table bucks the trend of a bunch of wünderkind with an outlier or two. For the past several years, there haven’t been more than two final tablists over 32, this year, only two players are under 30, and 51-year-old Cliff Josephy leads the pack. This week, I revisited a PokerNews article I did last year. With charts!

Roger Tracey

According to reports on the NW Poker Facebook group, Roger Tracey died in a car accident Monday. Roger dealt at several clubs over the past several years, and worked at Spirit Mountain and Chinook Winds casinos before that. Our thoughts are with his family and friends.

Deal of the Week: Black Diamond Hot August Poker Classic

I don’t generally get a chance to try out the samplings of poker down the valley, but I’m hoping to get the chance to play some of this series at the Black Diamond in Albany.

The room is just off the freeway on the north side of town, about 70 miles from Portland. There’s a 6-Max tournament on the 18th, a Bounty tournament on the next night, Tag Team and Big O tournaments on Saturday the 20th, and a 60K starting stack $250 buyin on Sunday. That all sounds good to me.

The 6-Max has a 42-person cap, which leads me to believe that there may only be 7 tables in the room, so seating may be limited. The announcement has a phone number you can call for particulars.

There are no guarantees, but if the $250 buyin Sunday game got 4 tables, it would have a $9K in the pot. With 4 or five payouts for 36 players, that’s still some significant money. See my “Sweet Spot” article.

Might be a good excuse to visit my family in town.

This Week In Portland Poker

• This week’s big event is the First Friday $20K guarantee at Final Table. According to their web site, it’s a $60 buyin with 2 live rebuys and a $40 addon. It also says “More Details to Follow,” but I haven’t seen anything as of press time. An email that went out Tuesday afternoon indicates that they plan to run a $10K guarantee with the same buyin as the $20K on Friday nights.

Follow @pokermutant on Twitter to get updates on late-breaking specials.

Only a Day Away

• At Thunder Valley’s Ante Up Poker Tour World Championship, the $250K Monolith drew 767 players for a $285K prize pool. Coming up this weekend is the Head to Head Championship, and the $500K guarantee Ante Up World Championship (entry Friday and Saturday, $1,650 buyin).
• WPT Legends of Poker at LA’s Bicycle Casino has entry flights to a $240 buyin $500K guarantee from Friday through Tuesday.
• The Summer SuperStack at Calgary’s Deerfoot Inn kicks off on 10 August. The first event is a C$550 buyin with three starting days.
• 10 August is also the start of the Venetian August Weekend Extravaganza. The big event is a three entry day $80K for $250. They are partnering with the Bicycle Casino to award seats to the Mega Millions event running during the Legends of Poker.
• The Arizona State Poker Championship runs 12—16 August at Talking Stick Resort outside Phoenix. Entry days Friday through Sunday, both limited to 470 entirs and 130 alternates, with the final day Tuesday the 16th. $1.1K buyin.
• The Chumash Summer Poker Series runs from 15—21 August, at the Chumash Casino Resort about 125 miles northwest of Los Angeles. Most of their events are too small to make the trip worthwhile, but they are featuring a $325 buyin $100K guarantee on 20 August. And if you get there a few days early there’s a $40 Big O tournament.